Friday, May 27, 2011

And The Winner Is . . .

Number five. Emily from Greens and Jeans. Congrats. I'll send you an email so you can send me your mailing address.

Back to the Roots, the maker of the mushroom growing kit, is trying to support education and sustainability. So if you have a kit and want to help out, post a photo of the grown kit on their Facebook page. For each photo they receive they will donate a free kit and sustainability curriculum to a school classroom of your choice.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program. I've been behind in telling you what has been happening in the garden. With the hot weather, I wanted to make sure everything was planted up in the garden.

Earlier this week the trellis net came in so I put it up. I really want one that is 6' tall, but they make them 5' tall. So a foot at the top or bottom is always untrellised except with twine that holds the trellis on. The nylon mesh is for the cucumbers and melons to climb. Yesterday the melons went in. I also went by Pemberton Farms (which so sounds like a farm but isn't, its a nursery with a specialty grocery store) and picked up some sweet pepper plants. As I walked home the wind was whipping the poor babies around. I probably looked silly sheltering them in my hands.

Today I planted those peppers. Very, very early in the morning I planted them as I didn't want to brave the heat like I did yesterday. The humidity is supposed to be oppressive today. I went through my plant leftovers and planted some in little corners of the garden. Others got tossed. Tomorrow I want to pick the last of the spinach before it bolts as I'm sure it will soon from all this heat. Then I can plant up the last of the three sisters beds. I probably should have done it this morning, but I wanted to give them one more day. Silly since it will be so hot and spinach doesn't like to grow in the heat. Really what was I thinking?

So by tomorrow afternoon the whole garden will officially be planted up for the summer. I'll still have successions coming along in the greens beds, but the six summer beds will be finished. Maybe this weekend I can show off how the spring plants are doing. I haven't shown off my pea plants since my overhead views in mid March. And the onions are feeling left out too. The Asian greens bed and the lettuce bed have just gotten all the glory so far this year. But soon the peas will start to flower. I can't wait.

You are getting HEAT! What is that like? LOL! We are grey and cool and wet again (sigh). Oh well, that will not stop me from enjoying a long weekend with lots of time spent in mine and our community giving garden.

Nartaya, I took all the photos yesterday. I'll post this morning I hope.

Laura, yes heat! It is awful. If the temps were ten degrees cooler I'd be very happy, but a lot of my Asian greens are bolting (I've picked them). The lettuce is going to be bitter if this keeps up. I have some new seedlings in the wings, but not enough to replace everything. The melons I planted are loving it though. They have put on a lot of growth in a very short time.

About Me

I've been gardening for almost three decades now, ever since my husband and I bought our first house. Every garden has been different. The first was small and the soil was almost pure sand. The second was larger and I had heavy clay. The third and current one which is just outside of Boston, is by far the largest even though the lot is by far the smallest. Since we bought the house new, we designed the landscaping ourselves, and the soil we added was fairly good. My challenge here is the location. We are so close to our neighbors that their houses can shade the garden.